More Quotes Taken From E. L. & I. C.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close [2]has a number of eccentric characters. The reader is given a glimpse into their lives and their views of the world, and through these characters the author, Jonathan Safran Foer, provides some interesting quotes.

From the hard of hearing man who hasn’t left his apartment for twenty-four years, and who shouts everything: “So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!” (pg. 153)

From Oskar’s grandmother: “When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. ...

I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” (pg. 180)

Oskar’s grandfather lost the ability to speak and has the word Yes tattooed on his left hand and No on his right hand to make it easier to communicate. He writes about his habit of spending lots of time at airports: “I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone, I sit on the side with a coffee and write in my daybook, I examine the flight schedules that I’ve already memorized, I observe, I write, I try not to remember the life that I didn’t want to lose but lost and have to remember, being here fills my heart with so much joy, even if the joy isn’t mine….” (pg. 109)

Are you reading the book? Please come to the Gulf Coast Reads [3]book discussion at the library on Wednesday, October 17 at 10:30 am.

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